Interorganizational Ethical Conflict within Alliances: A Conceptual Framework and Research Propositions

Differences in organizational culture between alliance partners have consistently been shown to negatively affect the performance of strategic alliances. This paper enriches researchers' and managers' understanding of the impact of organizational culture on alliances by considering ways in which the organizational culture of alliance partners may differ from an ethical perspective. The discussion reveals different ways in which alliance partners may differ with respect to each partner's ethical orientation and level of moral development and how ethical differences between alliance partners can impact alliance performance and important relational outcomes. In addition, the paper also suggests that not all types of ethical similarity are beneficial to alliance performance.